


THINGS THAT RHYME WITH CALIBRATIONS

by spicyshimmy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, M/M, Multi, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Garrus and M!Shep ficlets written for Kassafrassa at tumblr. <i>Sometimes it happens. Shepard dreams about falling through space.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. UNTITLED

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can dream about the stuff you’ve lived just as often as you can dream about the stuff you haven’t lived.

Sometimes it happens. Shepard dreams about falling through space.

You can dream about the stuff you’ve lived just as often as you can dream about the stuff you haven’t lived. It doesn’t all have to be nightmares—not necessarily; not even for a guy like him.

It doesn’t all have to be about scars and medic bays, about bruises that ache when he rolls the wrong way, about a joint in his shoulder that won’t pop back into place, about a jaw he clenches in the night or molars he grinds to keep all the stars in space.

Somewhere just outside, spread so far, way bigger than any of them—he doesn’t think about it too often because the more he lives it the less he has perspective on it.

That’s gravity for you.

And it gets to him sometimes, sure. Maybe even worse than when it _actually_ got to him, sucking him out into the black, arms pinwheeling like some kind of joke—except this time, he wasn’t laughing. Helmet too tight, breath fogging the glass from the inside and fire, shrapnel, all that heat steaming it up outside, no fear and no pain. Not that deep. Not that far.

_Nothing_.

So that’s what he dreams about—but only sometimes. And it still might be better than the alternative.

Because when he wakes with the sheets tangled around his knees and the sweat damp on his back and his cock hard, all his scars dead tissue and all the skin around them burning, it’s the stuff he hasn’t done, the people he can’t be with, knowing he’s alone—pinwheeling through space, shoulder to shoulder but no hand reaching for his—that cuts like the red-hot shrapnel never did.

‘Shepard,’ Garrus says that morning, and Shepard’s jaw holds oh-so tight. 


	2. SORRY ABOUT YOUR FACE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But for now there’s quiet, even if there isn’t peace.

They’ve both got scars. Only one of them has an actual graft, skin that isn’t even skin anymore.

*

Shepard knows texture. When you do a lot you feel a lot, mostly sleek stuff, tech and weapons. Shepard knows smooth—but he also knows hard, hard _and_ rough. He knows those chips and pocks and tears and all the wear that comes with use, the stuff you hold onto by accident, the stuff you become because of luck. Good or bad, smooth or rough; it’s just two sides of the same thing. It’s just the stubble he doesn’t have time to shave some mornings, the scar that runs through his eyebrow and pulls on his skin when he grins or when he winks.

They get fixed up. They get repurposed. They’re useful right up until they’re not, collecting dings and scratches along the way.

 _Sorry about your face_ isn’t something Shepard says in the mirror, not without acknowledging it’s all a joke. It isn’t something he’d say to Garrus, either, bent over the wires of an M29 Grizzly. One of the worst hunks of junk they ever made, he remembers saying, nothing like the M35 Mako—right before it fried his fingers and he had to suck on the electric burn, catching sight of the face he still wasn’t sorry about just above him.

‘I used to be better at this,’ he says.

‘Of course,’ Garrus replies, with that twist in his voice, the twist in his features just as wry as his tone.

Shepard can’t see the scars but he knows they’re there, and he gets the engine running eventually, grumbling to life under his tender ministrations.

‘You know, they say I have the magic touch,’ Shepard says.

‘They,’ Garrus repeats.

Shepard laughs. That says it all.

*

The ride isn’t smooth. It’s the opposite of that, the rough that exists _because_ of the smooth, jumping and bumping until Shepard’s brain feels as scrambled in his skull as his heart inside his ribs. He cuts the engine when they get to nowhere, knowing full well he’ll have to go through the whole thing all over again just to get back. But for now there’s quiet, even if there isn’t peace.

It’s Tuchanka. What else did he expect?

It’s the closest they’ll ever get to the idea, that’s for sure. Shepard doesn’t steal it—it’s more like an enforced borrowing, something he’ll return at the end of the night just like he’ll return the Grizzly, but he doesn’t plan on returning the glance he throws Garrus’s way.

There are some things they can’t return, some things they have to graft. Shepard guesses that _is_ stealing, but he’s never called _himself_ a paragon of virtues.

‘Hey,’ Shepard says. When he leans his cheek on Garrus’s shoulder the regulation clip of his hair is too short to tickle, and the scar above his eyebrow touches the graft at Garrus’s jaw, dead skin on dead skin.

It’s not even rough—not even smooth. 


	3. STANDARD ISSUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He might as well be pressed out of a mold for the shape his body’s in, nothing he hasn’t seen before—countless times—in the full-length mirror outside the shower.

Shepard doesn’t lose his cool.

Correction— _Commander_ Shepard doesn’t lose his cool.

These days, the two men are one and the same; both go to sleep at the same hour, whenever the stars burn hot and the suns—somewhere, anyway—go down in the big bad sky.

Shepard sits back, rolls his shoulders out, and waits for the muscles in his jaw to unclench. His body eases. He’s not standing at attention for anyone, least of all for himself.

Least of all for the Turian in the room.

 _Literally_.

The shirt he’s wearing is simple, white cotton. The sweat beneath is simple, too. It’s standard issue; his body’s had a few upgrades since then. There’s more work on him than there is on the Normandy, but there’s no shame in that this day and age.

He drops his hands between his knees, rubbing his thumb against that soft web of skin where the pulse reaches, not too loud and not too steady. That’s an old habit. It’s nothing too serious.

‘Hey,’ he says, cool as ever.

Shepard doesn’t lose his cool.

‘Hello,’ Garrus agrees, then, ‘We’ve said that much already.’

No amount of preparation, no amount of training, no amount of near-death experiences, close calls _or_ reckless living, can prepare a guy for getting buck naked in front of a Turian.

‘Well OK then,’ Shepard says, and reaches down to the hem of his shirt, ready to pull it up over the twitching muscles of his belly.

Simple, white cotton. Standard issue on a standard man. He might as well be pressed out of a mold for the shape his body’s in, nothing he hasn’t seen before—countless times—in the full-length mirror outside the shower. Always checking; never for the sake of vanity. A guy in his position needs to keep stock of how he’s doing, without fail, every damn day. There’s no room to get soft, no need to get lazy.

It’s bound to happen sometime—maybe in a few years.

Maybe when he finds his first gray hair while shaving.

And when that day comes, he’ll take it. If he makes it that far, anyway.

Garrus watches, unblinking, ever the analyst. Too bad Shepard can’t read what he’s thinking. ‘I could learn a thing or two about keeping my head around a guy like you,’ Shepard says.

When he pulls free of the t-shirt, Garrus is waiting. 


End file.
